Do you understand how the Electoral College system works? I never understood it myself, and recently started researching it. Now that I've taken the time to do so, in depth, and attempted to put it into perspective how it was intended to function, and how it works in today's political process, I'm all the more befuddled. Does anybody understand this, and if so, can they explain A: How it's supposed to be fair and just, and B: How it bears any relevance in our modern world? Because it's idiotic, as I see it, and the poorly translated instructions for the assembly of a multi-part christmas present for a child are easier to understand then this bassakwards system.
Ultimately, as we've seen a few times in history, the 'popular' vote does not win the election. So even if 60% of the country says we want Candidate A, Candidate B can still 'win'. WTF? There have been numerous efforts to reform this process and make it based on the popular vote. Every attempt fails to pass Senate or Congressional approval.
The purpose as I understand it is, in the simplest of forms, intended to ensure that every state has a balanced vote amongst the other states. That would make sense in a situation where, for example, a vote was related to something that effects states on the whole, as an independent entity in a collection of states. Let's say that the government wanted to mandate that every state had to contribute a 5% sales tax towards the repair of the New Jersey Turnpike. That would be something rolled up to the 'state' level, so that the population of New York and New Jersey combined would not override the individual votes of the far less populated Wyoming and Iowa.
But somehow, way back when, it became important that voting for the leadership of the country was somehow to be 'balanced' by each state, which makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever. Because leading the country means representing the country and the occupants on the whole, not by state.
This stuff was drafted and put into place 200 years ago, in the early 1800's, And it's still firmly in place, although it's relevance or purpose seems completely out dated. Let's stop and think about what's still in place and has not evolved along with the rest of things.... There's more than the original 13 colonies being represented. Slavery is long gone and those who regret that are pretty much gone or on their last leg. Women are voting and working along side men. I've got indoor plumbing and don't need a chamber pot or a detached wooden shack outside the house as a toilet. We've advanced medical practices well beyond the dark ages. We're driving cars these days not riding horses. We have instant, mass, national and global communication at our hands, not the pony express or hand-carried notes sent overseas on slow moving clipper ships. We're no longer burning witches at the stake, Hell, even religion has evolved more in the last 200 years then our election system, and that's a pretty bold statement coming from me.
So when will our political process catch up?